


crescent moon

by feyreternal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond, Pining, Reader is force-sensitive, Slow Burn, Soft Din, baby yoda is adorable at every turn, din can't talk to women, he just wants his parents to love each other, i'm gonna literally k word you all with pining, is the only mando, no beta we die like men, reader is definitely not, reader is hella mando-sexual, reader is not having any of mandos shyt, so much pining, this screams domestic!din, touch-starved mando, xian is a selfish lover, ya horny bastards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:08:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23486587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyreternal/pseuds/feyreternal
Summary: You and the Mandalorian make a deal. You teach the kid what he needs to know and Mando pays youwhatever he can from his bounty work. It's easy enough. No problems.Except for the one where you're crazy attracted to him but afraid to say anything and he thinks there's no way you could like someone like him so he sulks in silence.You're both idiots.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Original Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader
Comments: 16
Kudos: 237





	1. in which the kid always gets what he wants

The planet Taris was a skughole. With social unrest that still stifled the cities and mass pollution that made it a place no one was quite eager to settle down in, it was the perfect place to hide. Especially for anyone specifically trying not to be found.

You sit inside a local cantina, waiting for whatever food and drink you’d ordered before you would be on your way. Your old ship was broken down and beaten but it worked well enough as a home hidden in an abandoned warehouse in the lower levels of the city.

It had been three months since you nearly crash landed on the planet, and it was there you would stay until you completely fixed up your ship. Which cost money, which wasn’t too hard to get when card games were your forte and your fingers were nimble enough to slip into the deep pockets of those passing through. No, not hard, it just took longer than you would’ve preferred.

They would come for you eventually, but by then you would be long gone.

The afternoon was no different than any other afternoon you’d spent in the cantina. There were no familiar faces, sans the workers of course, and Cress had just finished a round of Sabacc with two drunken Twi’leks who could barely tell the difference between pure sabacc and a straight khyron. It wasn’t busy, which meant you wouldn’t be making too much money anyways. You’d opted to leave, and were almost out, almost gone when the familiar pull of a power you hadn’t felt in a long, long time drew you back.

Leave, you thought, keep moving. But your legs betrayed you. You hadn’t felt it in so long, not since the empire had fallen. Not since they’d taken the only person left that you cared about.

But that feeling drew you right back in, and no matter how much your head was protesting against it, you moved back into the cantina to search for its source.

What you weren't expecting was the little green creature whose eyes widened with awe when they found yours. What struck you however was the being that stood from the table and began to walk toward the bar of the cantina. The shape of his visor and glint of beskar steel that lined his body; Mandalorian armor. Your heart skipped one, two, three beats before starting up again.

Reality set back in. Not him, you realized, should’ve known.

You watched him though, every step until he was out of your immediate view, until a tiny tug on your pant leg forced your eyes downward. And there was the little gremlin. All smiles and grabby hands, acting like he knew the woman that stood before him even though you’d never seen one another before. Young ones were like that, you remembered, so drawn to other force users, so trusting of them. They read others intentions like it was second nature, because to them it was, and this one had felt you from across the room and seen you for what you truly were.

“Hello there,” you spoke softly and bent down to pick the little one up. Truthfully, he was the most adorable little thing you’d ever seen. “Did you lose your….” you stumbled for the right words, because surely the man in Mandalorian armor didn’t look like the little one under his beskar, so you settled for “guardian?”

The child cooed, settling a hand against your arm.

“Or perhaps he’s lost you. Why don’t we go find him, huh?” You hadn’t moved another step when a loud noise came from the child’s stomach and you broke into laughter. “Maybe we can have him get you some food then. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?” More cooes. “I thought so too.”

You remembered him briefly walking to the bar. Probably looking for guild work, you thought. Of course he would work for the guild, most Mandalorians did nowadays. But the guild didn’t operate out of Taris,you would know after all. If they did you would’ve been off the planet a long time ago.

The Mandalorian was nowhere to be seen near the bar. Although this made no sense to you. Why would he leave the child?

Unless…

“It might be the dumbest idea I’ve had in awhile, little one. But rest assured, I’ve had dumber and they’ve all seemed to work out just fine.” Even though you were sure the child didn’t understand he giggled.

You walked out of the cantina into the back alley and were met immediately with a blaster to your face. You smiled, “you know you really shouldn’t leave your child alone in a bar on one of the sketchiest planets in the Outer Rim.”

“Put him down.” His voice came out modulated, startling you; not because you didn’t expect for it to sound that way but because you did and it still shook you to your core.

“My name is Crescent,”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m just trying to be civil-”

“I’m gonna give you to the count of three-”

“You’re looking for guild work.”

The Mandalorian fell silent. The tension never wavered, but you could tell he wasn’t as inclined to shoot you dead like he was a second before. “And how would you know that?”

“You’re a Mandalorian. Mercenaries, bounty hunters, it’s your culture. Anyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows that.” Putting the child on the ground so you could walk to the man holding you at blasterpoint, you continued to speak. “The guild doesn’t operate out of here. I would know.”

“You’re a bounty hunter?”

You felt your throat dry up. Your eyes drifted from the man in beskar. “Was… or… something along those lines.”

You watched him bend down to pick up the little green child, never moving his blaster from your form.

“Then what are you doing on Taris?” He asked. “Early retirement?”

“Here?” You laughed, but it came out dry and sarcastic. “Definitely not. I’m just here until I can get the parts I need to get my ship back up and running. Then I’m gone.”

“After that?”

You shrugged, unsure where the force would take you next. You had spent the last five years hoping from planet to planet, hoping to stay below the radar until you were no more than a myth to both the fallen Empire and the Republic.

The Mandalorian took advantage of having his eyes hidden, taking in the woman before him completely. You didn’t look like much, not someone he would expect to have handled bounty work, but then again that might’ve been an advantage; he knew not to underestimate an opponent. Not that you were an opponent exactly.

He lowered his blaster and watched your eye’s shift from him to the kid.

“I also know Mandalorian culture is extremely family oriented. I thought it best I warn you, the Empire might be gone but that doesn’t mean they’re reach is. Sectors ten and twelve, avoid them if you can.” With that you turned and readied yourself to leave.

The moment you began to walk away the child looked up at you, his smile falling as though it knew you were leaving and had no intention of coming back. You turned a corner and were gone.

Mando had been with the child for only a short period of time but he’d never seen a look of distraught so prominent on the little guy’s face before. “Oh man,” he joked, “you got attached didn’t you?” He continued watching as the child looked at him and his frown grew more and more each passing second. “Don’t give me that look, you know I don’t like when you do that.” Water filled the kid’s eyes. Oh maker, he was gonna cry. “I’m not asking her to come back to the ship, do you know how creepy that is? She’s gonna think I’m trying to carbon freeze her or something.” Tears, literal tears, and then a tiny sob, and Mando broke. “Fine, fine, you win.” The child smiled, “you’re a little monster, you know that?” and cooed.

You hadn’t made it very far when a static-filled voice shouted from behind you. You turned around, confusion written all over your face.

“Uhh, ugh, listen…” you waited for the Mandalorian to compose himself, meanwhile Mando was rolling his eyes at how dumb he probably sounded, “I’ve got some spare parts back on my ship. If you wanted, I could…lend you some.”

“Lend me some?”

“...yeah.”

“As in borrow? As in...you want them back?”

“Well, no. I mean, ok look you can have the parts. Honestly the kid just started crying when you left and he kind of has abandonment issues-”

“Abandonment issues? Why’s that?”

A brief flashback to Mando abandoning the child flashed through his mind. “No idea.”

“Are you- are you asking me to babysit your kid in exchange for ship parts?”

Mando subconsciously shuffled his left foot back and forth across the ground. “When you put it that way it sounds less creepy than I thought it would, so yeah...yeah, let’s go with that.”

You almost couldn’t stop yourself from laughing. You looked at the small child that stared up at you, towered over by the Mandalorian that stood next to him. “You’ve got a cute kid. And lucky for you, I could really use a few ship parts.”


	2. in which you and the mandalorian cut a deal

You didn’t immediately tell the Mandalorian everything about yourself. Obviously it was because you’d just met but also it was because the Empire, or what was left of it, along with the Republic were looking for you. They may have stopped putting bounties on your head when they found it futile, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still looking for you.

It’d been only a few days since the Mandalorian and you had teamed up to watch the kid and fix up your ship when he asked you the question you’d been dreading. “How’d you know the Empire was looking for me?”

“Lucky guess.” You hoped it was enough for Mando, or so you were told to call him, but the force was not with you this time.

“Doubt that.” He said.

“The Empire is looking for everyone.”

“Even you?” He’d gotten you there.

Slowly, you stopped what you were doing and looked over at the beskar helmet that covered his face. “Unfortunately.”

“Then I don’t have to worry about you alerting them about anything.” It wasn’t a question, but the tone he used suggested something along the lines of a threat.

“I wouldn’t turn in a kid.”

“I never said anything about the kid.”

You paused. Standing up, you came face to beskar with Mando. “You have your secrets, I have mine.”

“If your secret somehow involves the kid then whether or not I share my own secrets with you doesn’t matter. I have to protect him-”

“He’s special,” you said to appease him, “right?” Mando doesn’t say anything. “Sometimes he does things that you can’t explain, but it’s things you’ve never seen before, never heard of. And that scares you because you don’t understand it.”

“How did you…”

“Because it scared my parents too.”

After that he doesn’t bother you about it again.

_

You don’t speak to each other for a few days after. It’s not until one day when you are working on fixing the circuit multiplexer on the main deck of your ship that the little green child waddles his way up the ramp and just stares at you. He doesn’t move or say anything until he has your full attention.

“You’re quite the wanderer. Did you come to help?”

A whirling from behind you draws his attention. A tiny astromech teeters it’s way across the deck and into the cockpit, all the while making beeps, speaking in binary. _FUCK FUCK FUCK._

“Zin! What did you do!?”

 _NO PROBLEMS, IGNORE ME, CARRY ON._ And the cockpit door slides shut without another word from the astromech

“Z1-N! I swear on the Maker-”

The cooing of the child stops your scolding. He waddles himself further into the ship until he’s almost right in front of you. His hand reaches out, like he wants to be picked up.

“Sorry buddy, there’s a lot of loose wires in here, why don’t you go find the Mandalorian?” But the child doesn’t listen, he just continues forward. You begin to stand and only just notice as the baby begins to move over the open wiring on the floor under him. “No, no!”

You pick the baby up, earning yourself a saliva filled giggle. “You sly little beast.”

The baby points behind you, at the shut door of the cockpit.

“You want to see the droid? Hmm. Fat chance, he’s probably in there fixing something he broke before I can see it.”

You don’t understand how the baby comprehends the word no, but he does, and it throws him into a fit. One moment he’s giggling and happy, and the next he’s whining and on the verge of tears.

“Oh, no, no, no,” you raise an eyebrow, “that doesn’t work on me, you know why?” And then you’re reaching out, not literally, but figuratively. Your reach extends through the force and through it you project only soothing thoughts. The forests of Kashyyyk at dawn, the quiet meadows of Yavin-4, flying over Bespin’s white clouds, and then the kid’s whining slows.

“See, you just need the right touch is all,” you tap the little gremlin’s nose with your finger. He catches it before you can pull it away. You let him play with the rest of your fingers, sprawling them out and pushing his face into them. “You’re getting sleepy huh?” And miraculously, he seems to actually be getting sleepy. “Let’s get you down for a nap then.”

You turn your body to find the Mandalorian standing at the bottom of the deck of your ship, watching you with the kid.

“How the hell did you get him down so quickly?” He sounds astounded, and there’s an underlying tone of relief there as well. “He’s been a kriffing pain lately. I can barely get him to sit still, let alone nap.”

“Well he’s not fully down just yet, but…” you reach your hand up again and stretch your fingers across the baby’s forehead. “Sleep.” And that’s all it takes for the kid to knock out completely.

Not the best idea, it would seem.

“What did you do?” Mando’s voice is tense. _“What did you do?!”_ He’s closing in on you when you stop him, literally. You can tell he’s trying to move but can’t. “What is this?!”

“Mando-”

“Give me the kid!”

“Just listen!”

You can feel him struggling against the invisible binds you have on him. _“Put him-”_ And just about there is where you’ve had enough. Some men just don’t want to listen. So you would make them.

“First of all, shut up before you wake him.” You huff. The silence that follows is a nice change from the yelling that ensued before. “Second, it’s just an old mind trick. He’s sleeping, and he’ll continue to sleep until he’s rested enough. I’ve done it to myself before when I…” _couldn’t sleep myself, afraid of the nightmares that came next,_ that’s what you wanted to say but didn’t. “I wouldn’t hurt a child.”

You place the child on the cushioned chair that sat off to the side of your ship’s deck. “I’m going to let you go, but if you try anything just know I will kick your ass.”

The Mandalorian doesn’t hesitate grabbing the child as soon as you let him out of your hold. He’s halfway down the ship’s ramp when he turns to you again. “You and I need to talk. I’ll be right back.”

While he’s gone - probably putting the baby into his own ship - Zin, your sailor-mouthed astromech, scutters out of the cockpit and beeps happily, as if he hadn’t just been screaming atrocities across the ship.

 _Another Mandalorian?_ He asks in a sequence of beeps and boops.

“Seems like we tend to attract a certain type huh?”

_No, YOU have a type, I keep saying we should avoid the bucketheads._

“I thought you found the armor attractive?”

_I’m an astromech, I don’t feel attraction._

“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to admit it.”

“Admit what?” The modulated voice from earlier rings through the air. “What’s with the droid?” He nods his beskar covered head toward Zin.

“His name’s Zin,” you glare at him.

“I don’t care what it’s name is. Keep it away from the baby.”

“You know, you’re kind of an asshole.”

The Mandalorian turns his head back to gaze at you and goes just as silent as he was when you’d had a hold on his speech.

“I don’t know if it’s a Mandalorian thing,” you begin, “or just a bounty hunter thing, or whatever. _His_ name is Zin, and he’s part of my crew.”

Zin beeped behind you. “Zin, be nice,” you warned.

Mando sighed and ignored the beeping. “Look...you’re right, okay? I don’t...I don’t understand what’s going on with the kid. There’s things he does that just...it’s like what you did to me. I don’t ever do this really, but…” he paused for a second, placing his hands on his hips and, from what you could tell, preparing himself for what he was about to say next. “I can pay you. To help the kid. To teach him how to control it. A while back he almost choked out my friend when we were arm wrestling; he could’ve done some serious damage and he doesn’t even realize it.”

Your heart squeezes a little because you wish someone had cared that much about you as well when you were starting out. And the Mandalorian himself sounds defeated, like he didn’t know what else to do about the kid. You don’t blame him. Non-force users never truly understood it, how could they?

“Ok,” you say without even thinking about it, “I’ll help. But my ship-”

“There’s plenty of room onboard mine. Besides, no offense but this thing isn’t lasting more than another rotation out there. It’d be a miracle if you can pull another few jumps out of it.”

“Because your ship is any better.” He didn’t have to say anything to that because you knew the truth - his ship was junk but well maintained junk that would last. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I’m sharing a bed with you.”

You swear he laughs.

“Help me move my stuff onto your ship then, Mando. We can sell the parts off mine and get the hell out of here.”

“Sounds like a plan.”


	3. in which mando starts to catch something called feelings but refuses to acknowledge them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yo this one is just straight domestic din
> 
> enjoy.

You watch Mando press buttons on the dashboard in front of him and hold back every comment you have. But something in him senses it. Maybe it’s the way you keep opening and closing your mouth like you want to say something, or how you reach out and then pull your hand back just slightly. Whatever it is, he catches on.

“What?”

“What?” You ask back.

“What is it?” He looks, or you think he does, at you. “You keep fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.”

He keeps his gaze toward you but moves his hand across the dashboard toward the panel he’d been pressing at before. You let out a noise that sounds something like a squeak and reach your hand out again before pulling it back.

 _“What?”_ Mando’s modulated voice comes out exacerbated.

“You’re gonna put us in cosmic overdrive!” You practically yell out.

“No, I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

“Cress, I’m nowhere near the overdrive button, it’s over near you. We’re fine!”

“It doesn’t matter! If you keep accelerating at the same time you hit the engine thruster then yes you are.”

“I did it one time,” you can’t see it, but you’re sure he’s rolling his eyes, “stop worrying.”

“You’ve done it three times now.”

“And yet we haven’t gone into cosmic overdrive.”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

Mando’s hand reaches for the engine thrusters and he accelerates.

“MANDO!”

He does it again, “sorry, what?”

“Stop!”

“Stop what?” And again. _Ok, now he’s just being mean,_ you think.

“Mand-”

“You’re such a worrier, nothing happ-” and then it happens. There’s a sudden jerk and then the Razor Crest is surging forward and it’s not stopping.

“I told you!” You shout at him as you’re thrown from your seat and you land on your ass next to Mando who’s thrown onto his knees in front of the dash.

“Kriff, are you ok?” He’s reaching out to help you but you shove his hand away.

“I told you!” You repeat and try to stand up but it’s hard because the Crest is swerving back and forth. It only gets worse when Mando yelps and pulls the handle to steer hard to the left to avoid whatever he’s seen and you’re sent flying into him. More specifically: on top of him. “Good job, you busted it! The brakes aren’t going to work until we reset the systems!”

“And how do we do that?!”

“We have to hyperspace jump!” The Crest banks left on its own accord again while you’re trying to get up and once again you’re thrown into Mando, beskar hitting skin as your shoulder meets his chest.

“Just fix it!”

You throw your hand out and focus. On its own accord the hyperspace handle shifts down and you and Mando are tossed around once more before the ship settles and the blue of hyperspace overtakes it. You and Mando are breathing heavily. He’s on the floor, still under you, when you turn your face to meet his. “I-”

“Told me, yeah I know!” He practically shoves you up and off of him before making his way out of the cockpit. “I’ll go check on the kid, stay here.” He’s firm in his words, so you do what he says.

Mando makes his way down the ladder to the main deck of his ship and stops at the bottom. He rests his head against the rails, metal clashing on metal and rattling at the impact. The kid is fine, he was napping in his circular floating cradle. Mando really didn’t even need to check on him.

Himself though, yeah he needed to check on himself. Mando was never more grateful for the metal cuppiece that was part of his armor than he was right at this very moment. 

So maybe it had been a while since he’d been with someone. But bounty work had taken over his life the last couple of years. Maker, ok so it’d been a really long time. Like _really_ long. Like the last time had been with Xi’an and Xi’an wasn’t exactly an attentive lover.

His breathing grew heavier as he made his way to the refresher. For a few moments he stood against the wall clenching and unclenching his fists because there was no other way to get rid of the raging hard problem he had going on below. Well there was one other way he could get rid of it, but no, no, no, that was wrong. They were friends, of sorts, and they’d only known each other for a couple weeks now, but-

No, it’s wrong, and it’s inappropriate, and moreover Mando would never be able to look at you again if he did it, let alone talk to you. And being in such confined quarters would make that pretty hard.

Mando walks out the refresher a little later and almost falls over trying to avoid the droid that stands in his way. Zin is a boxy little droid, only about knee height, but all kriffing sass. The astromech waits for the Mandalorian to move out of his way before moving into the refresher himself. He looked up at Mando, beeped a couple times, and pushed the button on the wall to shut the door.

“Why do you even- forget it, I don’t care.” Mando made his way back up the ladder and into the cockpit where he finds you sitting in the pilot’s seat - his pilot’s seat. With the baby now in your lap. Who is pretending to fly the ship himself. Mando finds himself admitting it’s adorable, but backtracking when the word adorable slips through his mind.

Weeks, it’s only been weeks. You barely know each other.

“What took you so long? I went down to check and found the baby up from his nap.”

“Refresher.” Is all he says.

“Did that little mishap scare the literal,” you put your hands over the baby’s giant ears, “shit out of you?”

Mando chuckles under his breath, barely audible, but you don’t miss it. You pride yourself on making the man laugh, even if it was just a little. “Something like that.”

-

It’s not for another couple of days when Mando stops somewhere, a moon this time, and it’s actually pretty nice. It’s population density is low, and there’s a lot of unpopulated land, so Mando lands you somewhere close enough to walk to one of the town’s and decides it’s safe enough to restock on supplies before heading for a known guild contact more toward Hutt space.

“You coming with?” You ask Mando. “Kids asleep. I don’t know if you wanna leave him here alone. He’ll have Zin with him. And before you even ask, Zin is a translation astromech, he’s in no way designed to hurt anything.”

“It's fine, I trust you. I’ll set it to ground lockdown protocols, nothing will be able to get in there without me letting them.” You exit the ship with him and the two of you make your way into town.

It’s quant and incredible in a small town way. You love it immediately. The people there are more than willing to strike up conversation, even with the Mandalorian leering over your shoulder. Eventually Mando breaks away from you to look for a weapon’s part 

“Looking for something specific, darling?” There’s a nice middle aged Twi’lek woman that’s running the stand you’re looking through. It’s full of toys and children’s clothing. “You have a little one?”

“Oh, uh,” you hesitate, “sort of.”

“You and…” she looks off to where the Mandalorian is a couple stands down talking to a Mon Calamari.

“It’s com-” _complicated_ is what you start to say, but it doesn’t make its way through your mouth. You surely couldn’t tell this lady the full details about the kid and Mando and yourself. That would be a mess. The best thing to do at this point was just to go with whatever she thought.

“Yeah,” you sort of smile and begin looking at the toys again, planning on getting something for the little demon child back on the ship. You’d picked up two stuffed animals, an ewok and a lothcat, and was almost done checking out when the woman pointed out a couple blankets off to the right. So you picked out one with little moons on it, selfishly smiling because they reminded you of your name, Crescent. So you got that too. And then the more you thought about it, the more you realized the kid didn’t have much in the way of clothes. By the time you were done, you had a good amount of stuff piled up onto the woman’s counter. One more thing stopped you.

“Can I get that too, second one to the right?”

“Of course.” The woman put it in a bag with the rest of your things and smiled, bidding you a good day. “You and your husband have a good one, hopefully that baby of yours likes all his new stuff!” She says it so loud you’re sure the Mandalorian could hear it as he’s waiting outside the booth for you. You cringe. If he heard he doesn’t comment.

Mando does hear though. And he can see the way you react to the accusation. He thinks it’s discomfort and feels bad. _Would it be that terrible to be true?_ He thinks. And no, no, it’s not because he likes you in that sort of way - even if he’s thought about taking you on every piece of equipment in the Crest. Sure, he was a little rough around the edges, and yeah, maybe he came off as kind of an asshole sometimes, but...that was just who he was. Was it really so bad?

He cleared his throat, ignoring the nagging in his gut. “What’d you buy?” Looking in the bag he saw a bunch of kid’s stuff. “You’re gonna spoil him.”

You laugh and don’t deny it. “I thought they were cute! Plus, he doesn’t have enough clothes and I’m tired of putting him in that one sack. Now he has a bunch, and they’re different colors.” You smiled at the idea of the kid in the pink one you’d bought. “And he doesn’t have a blankie. All kids have blankies when they’re young.”

“Blankie?”

“Blanket.”

“I didn’t have one of those.”

“A blanket?! You’re lying!” You nudge him in the shoulder but he doesn’t laugh with you. “Wait seriously? What about a stuffed animal? A toy? Anything? Nothing?”

“Yes, nothing.”

“Mando!” You gape at him. “You never had something that you swore kept you safe at night, something you’d never go anywhere without?”

“Nope.”

You glare at him. “Ok mister big bad Mandalorian. Well, I had a stuffed porg named Jeremy and he kept all the nightmares away.”

Mando laughed incredulously. “Kept the nightmares away?”

“Stop laughing at me! It did! And now the tiny gremlin has a bunch of stuff like that too.”

Mando laughs again and takes the bag from you as you start to switch it more frequently from shoulder to shoulder. “He is a little gremlin, isn’t he?”

“Yeah…” you smirk up at the beskar-covered man next to you, “but he’s really cute.”

“He really is. It’s almost obnoxious.”

You make it back to the ship and take advantage of the downtime. You clean up a little before sitting and watching Mando clean his weapons. The kid sleeps for a couple more hours before finally waking up. He pulls himself out of his floating cradle and rubs his eyes as he walks over to you. The sleep has barely left his eyes and he’s giving you grabby hands to pull him into your lap.

“You should give him one thing at a time or else he’ll start to expect a bunch of stuff whenever we go out to grab supplies.” Mando suggests. But you decide that’s no fun and pull the whole bag over. The kid goes _wild_. He’s giggling and screeching and every time he pulls a new thing out of the bag he runs over to where Mando is standing, shows him, and brings it back to you so you can put it in his pile of already seen things.

Your heart clenches a little at the site. Because every time the kid shows Mando something, Mando makes sure to comment. He says things like “wow!” and “that’s cool!” and “woah, look at that!”

You smirk at the Mandalorian until he questions you about it. “You're just such a dad.”

“The kid can’t see me,” he explains, “he can’t see my facial expressions...so I’ve gotta make up for it by making sure he hears me. It’s actually pretty typical in Mandalorian culture.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”

He stops what he’s doing and gives you his full attention, except of course for when the kid needs to show him yet another different colored piece of clothing.

“I’ve met other Mandalorians. Doing uh….bounty work. But they’ve all taken their helmets off.”

Mando shrugs. “It’s dependent on your clan and upbringing. The one I came from didn’t remove their helmets, only in front of family - wives, husbands, kids.”

“Got it.” You just shook your head, content with his answer. In all honesty, you’d only met one other Mandalorian and he only took it off around you and close friends. He never explained it to you. Then again, you never asked, never thought to.

Mando clears his throat a couple times. But what he wants to say isn’t actually what comes out. He wanted to ask, so desperately wanted to ask, who the other Mandalorians were. It was still custom in most Mandalorian teaching to only remove your helmet in front of loved ones. What did that mean for you? Who had loved you enough to remove their helmet without even explaining its importance to you?

Instead he asked, “You hungry?”

You shook your head. “Wanna grab something from the cantina we passed? One of the shopkeepers I talked to said it’s kid friendly and pretty quiet.”

“Sure, let’s get going.”

You gathered the kid up in your arms and let him hold onto the lothcat stuffed animal he refused to let go of. He held it out, showing it to you like you hadn’t been the one to buy it for him. “It’s so cool!” You said in your best baby voice.

“Do we have to take the droid?”

“Mando!”

“What?”

“Yes, Zin is a part of this f-” you almost say family but backtrack, “group.”

If the Mandalorian catches it he says nothing. Zin beeps a curse at him and follows the three of you.

Mando opened the ramp to the Crest and you all made your way to cantina. And Mando stumbled over his words when the hostess asked how many would be dining in their party. “Three…” he cleared his throat, “there’s three of us.”

How odd it was not to be alone anymore.


	4. in which you and mando have a moment

You decide the best time to teach the child anything is right before his nap time, mostly because it usually tires him out enough that he doesn’t want to do anything other than nap afterwards. You’ve started him on the basics, but that just included calming himself enough to focus on her influence in the force.

It was really hard teaching a child, or so you came to realize, no matter how talented that baby was.

“He hasn’t made any progress.” Mando comes down the ladder to sit with you as the kid runs to get the lothcat stuffed animal he’d become attached to.

“He’s just a child.” You assure Mando. “He’ll get it. It’s just hard for him to concentrate. I can’t just start him on moving objects, he needs to understand the feel of the force; how it moves through things - you, me, him, the space between us. If he doesn’t understand the force, he can’t use it.”

“How is he supposed to understand when he’s just a kid? The most important thing right now to him is that stuffed animal you gave him.”

You smile up at Mando and grab his hand. “It doesn’t matter what age you are or even what species. I’ve met animals who understand the force better than most humans and aliens. Here, remove your glove for me?”

“My glove?” Mando stutters at the thought. The code he followed wasn’t overly strict with anything other than his helmet, so the gloves weren’t the issue. The issue was he hadn’t taken anything off in front of anyone ever - other than the necessary of course - and he didn’t know how he’d react to that kind of touch after so many years of not feeling it.

“If you don’t feel comfortable-”

“It’s not that,” he assured you, “just...ok…” and then he’s pulling off his glove, wondering why he was giving in so easily.

Your hand grasps the underside of his, facing his palm upward and you swear there’s a sharp intake of breath under that helmet that the modulator just barely picks up. You hover your other hand over his and close your eyes.

He takes you in that way, completely calm and focused. He remembers when he was younger, remembers the kind of women he was attracted to, and you somehow measured up to every bit of the ones he’d only dreamed about. Hell, if he was younger maybe he’d shoot his shot...but he wasn’t and he wouldn’t. Because as far as he was concerned you were way out of his league. And there was no way you’d be attracted to someone you’d never even seen. You’d proven that before. You hadn’t outright said anything, but whatever Mandalorian you knew before, you’d obviously been in love with them...and, somehow, seen their face. You were meant for love. That’s what held Mando back, because love meant giving all of yourself , and that wasn’t something that Mando could do. Better to keep his feelings to himself than drag you down with him. Eventually he’d get over his infatuation with you.

“You’re distressed.” You feel the emotions spiraling in him, but that one is the most prominent. You didn’t ask him why, he would tell you if he wanted to, and you didn’t want to push or pry. Apparently, however, he didn’t want to because he said nothing except,

“How can you tell?”

Your eyes flutter open and meet the cold beskar before you. Your hands never seperate. “The same way I can tell when the kid is about to get fussy. The same way I can tell when something bad is about to happen. If I focus, I can sense it through the force. And with training, so can he.” Your hand comes down into his own as you say, “one step further, and…” 

He feels it in waves. Soothing, soft waves that pull him deeper. The stress that was once there is being washed away until it’s nothing more than a speck in his subconscious. But even stranger is that all he does feel is you. There and present, like a beacon of serenity, the one thing holding his current state of mind together. His eyes shut and for the first time in a very long time, he’s completely at peace.

Your eyes are still locked onto the t-shaped visor of his helmet when another hand softly pushes down against yours.

Mando is pulled from out of it after that. “Hey kid.”

But the kid is different now, calmer. “You did it to him too…” Mando guessed.

“No,” you explain, “he just felt it. Because it’s what he was focused on. I guess the lothcat isn't the most important thing in the room to him after all.” You smirked and released his hand. “On the other hand, it does happen to be something he’s very attached to. Which gives me an idea.” Your hand comes out before the child and he watches with big eyes as it floats out of his hands and through the air until it sits up on a shelf not too high up but high enough that he can’t reach with help.

The kid runs over to that side of the ship and turns to you and Mando, pointing at the stuffed lothcat toy. You use the force to move it up and down, trying to indirectly tell the kid what you wanted him to do. He’s smart, and it only takes a little while before he picks up on what to do. You both watch his eyes close and his hand stretch out and upward. The lothcat shifts, just a little but enough that it falls to the floor. He cooes, grabs his toy, and runs to his room before anyone can take it from him again.

“That was good,” you say out loud, “he knows his limits. It’ll be easier for him not to overexert himself by using what he needs.”

“What do you mean?”

“He could’ve made it float all the way down to him, but he knew if he moved it just enough it would fall and gravity would do the rest. He’s quite smart.”

Mando sighed. Something he did often. “I’m gonna have to force-child proof everything on this ship now, aren’t I?” Your laughter brings his focus back on you, and he realizes then how much he likes how it sounds. “I’m really in for it.”

“Yeah you are.” You say, without realizing it’s not the kid he’s talking about.

-

The two of you are sitting in the cockpit, unable to sleep after a brief run-in with a few ex-imperials that couldn’t seem to mind their own business. It wasn’t anything crazy but there had been a bit of a shoot out and you and the Mandalorian had to fight your way back to the ship. Luckily the kid had been there with Zin and you were able to take off immediately without being followed or tracked.

Mando is sitting in the pilot’s seat, as always, and at one point he turns to you and reaches out. And for some reason your brain interprets it as him reaching out for you so naturally you take his outstretched hand in your own and squeeze. He seems startled, the first sign that maybe you’d read that wrong, and he looks down at your now intertwined hands.

“You ok?” He asks.

“Y-yeah,” you stutter through sentences, “I’ve been through worse- much worse. I just, you know, I just can’t sleep, so….”

He lightly tugs his hand out of yours and reaches next to you to press a button on the control panel. You’re immediately grateful for the darkness of space that swells through the cabin because you’re sure your face is bright red and there would be no way of hiding it otherwise.

Mando can sense your embarrassment however, and he briefly squeezes your hand again, lingering this time. In a moment of weakness he finds himself bringing the back of his glove clad hand up to brush against your jawline. He’d never hated wearing those gloves more than he did right then and there. Maybe it was a side effect of barely having any skin-to-skin contact in so long, but he found himself craving it more and more everyday.

You smile, not daring to look up into the visor of his helmet.

“You did good today.” He compliments you as he pulls his hand back the control panel, busying himself with that.

“So did you.” You say back.

“You had my back.” The shot one of the ex-imps had made had been aimed directly for Mando’s head, but you’d jumped in the way and stopped it mid-air - scaring the kriff out of a good amount of the soldiers there - before sending it back their way. You hadn’t thought about doing it, it was just a reaction, something you didn’t even realize you were doing until you’d done it. It came as naturally to you as the force did. “Don’t do that again. The beskar can hold up to a minor blaster bolt just fine. If you hadn’t been able to stop it-”

“But I had-”

“If you _hadn’t_...then that shot would’ve taken you right out.”

“Mando,” you began with a sigh, “thank you for your concern but I’m not some juvenile force user or padawan-”

“Pada-what?”

“I’ll explain another time. All you need to know is I’ve trained in the force for almost all of my life. It’s like second nature to me.” 

“That doesn’t mean I’ll stop worrying.” That makes you pause. It’d been a long time since someone was there to worry about you.

You wished you had the courage to reach for his hand once more as you continued. “But we’re partners, that means I’m gonna have your back no matter the circumstances we get thrown into.”

He shifts in his seat again, facing you. “Partners?”

“Well...yeah. What else would we be?”

Another moment of weakness. “Cress…” he whispers your nickname, _what if I asked you to be more than partners? What if I told you I would’ve taken that shot for you too? Because no, that’s not a normal thing amongst bounty partners; they don’t jump in front of blaster bolts or hold hands in the darkness of the cockpit on the ship they share with the kid they take care of together. That’s not at all what they do. That’s what...it’s what-_

There’s a cooing noise from behind the both of you and you turn to find the kid up and about.

“Hey buddy, you can’t sleep either?” You hold your arms out to him and he takes that as an invitation to climb into your arms. Mando watches the both of you interact.

Partners. He repeats over and over in his head. _Partners. Partners. Partners. What else would we be? What else?_

“You were saying?”

He shakes his head, clearing it from the dark thoughts that cloud his mind. “Forgot.”


End file.
